Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis has built a career around a particularly useful contrast: she can deliver a joke with clipped precision, then turn that same directness toward something darker and more unsettled. Born in Chernivtsi in 1983, Kunis moved with her family to Los Angeles at seven. Russian was her first language, and she arrived without speaking English, making her early progress as a child actor all the more striking. Television gave Kunis her defining start. She was 14 when she was cast as Jackie Burkhart in That '70s Show, finding the confidence, vanity and comic rhythm that kept the character lively across eight seasons. Soon afterward, she became the voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy, a role that showed how much personality she could convey through timing and tone alone. Her film career widened considerably with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. As Rachel Jansen, Kunis brought relaxed energy and sharp comic timing to a role that helped move her beyond the sitcom parts with which audiences associated her. She followed that breakthrough with action in The Book of Eli and a more demanding turn opposite Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Playing rival ballet dancer Lily, Kunis used her natural ease as something ambiguous and potentially threatening. The performance earned her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, as well as the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice International Film Festival. Kunis has remained especially comfortable in comedy, whether grounding the heightened premise of Ted, playing romantic friction in Friends with Benefits or leading the ensemble of Bad Moms. Yet films including Four Good Days and Luckiest Girl Alive have given her room to work in a more bruised, dramatic register. She produced and starred in Luckiest Girl Alive, and later served as an executive producer on Goodrich. Across television, animation, comedy and drama, Kunis has made adaptability the shape of her career. Her best performances retain the quickness that first made her stand out, while revealing how effectively that energy can carry tension, vulnerability or anger.